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HS2 Review ongoing

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quantinghome

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Double deck trains are irrelevant, because a significant amount of services will need to run onto classic lines to complete their journeys for the foreseeable future. There is no point doing double-deck just for Manchester and Birmingham.

And Leeds. And Leeds-Birmingham and Manchester-Birmingham. That's at least 30 diagrams, which could be run 400m long. 60-70 no. 200m double deck trains is a significant order.
 
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Bletchleyite

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You are throwing away a fifth of the potential final capacity of the route to remove.... a six inch change in height from platform into the train?

Ever tried stepping up 6" when in a wheelchair? Or elderly/infirm? Or a small kid? Or with heavy luggage?

We're behind the curve on this - it really needs to be made mandatory to have UK platform height level boarding for EVERY new train ordered going forwards.

You really think a 45 minute jaunt to Birmingham counts as true "intercity".
Or a 68 minute jaunt to Manchester
Or even the 88 minute jaunt to Leeds?

Yes. It's not about how long it takes, it's about the type of journey. The price will make these journeys not commuter journeys. People will primarily, as they do now, take multi-day journeys with luggage.
 

Ianno87

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Yes. It's not about how long it takes, it's about the type of journey. The price will make these journeys not commuter journeys. People will primarily, as they do now, take multi-day journeys with luggage.

But we're still talking "Business" luggage, i.e. small wheely case that could go on an overhead rack/laptop back. Not summer saturday special to Newquay with multuple strapped up leather cases.
 

Bletchleyite

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But we're still talking "Business" luggage, i.e. small wheely case that could go on an overhead rack/laptop back. Not summer saturday special to Newquay with multuple strapped up leather cases.

Have you ever been on a UIC gauge double deck train? Precisely which "overhead racks" are you talking about? It's a coat rack at absolute best. It definitely won't take an IATA carry-on - certainly not upstairs where there's often no rack at all.
 

HSTEd

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Ever tried stepping up 6" when in a wheelchair? Or elderly/infirm? Or a small kid? Or with heavy luggage?
THe vast vast majority of passengers are not that infirm or in wheelchairs, and there will only be a handful on each train.

Heavy luggage and children is easy enough to climb six inches, unless they are so small that their guardian should not be letting them walk around!

You could easily provide a hump at each end of the platform so that level boarding is available at a door for both sets in the formation.
But the platform needs to be optimised to get the best overall result for society.

UNless you are suggesting the benefits of convenience of allowing boarding at any door for <1% of passengers on less than half the trains caling at the station is worth many billions of pounds of effective capacity.
We're behind the curve on this - it really needs to be made mandatory to have UK platform height level boarding for EVERY new train ordered going forwards.
The cost of providing any door boarding is a loss of billions of pounds of public money.
It simply isn't worth it.

Yes. It's not about how long it takes, it's about the type of journey. The price will make these journeys not commuter journeys.
So... despite more than doubling potential capacity between London and Birmingham and London and Manchester.... the price will remain the same?
In reality the market will be flooded with cheap tickets, because half length trains are very unlikely to be much cheaper to run than full length formations.

There wil be no incentive to use pricing to control overcrowding, and every incentive to drive increased patronage.
Otherwise we really are building a railway to save time for a wealthy elite.
 

Ianno87

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Have you ever been on a UIC gauge double deck train? Precisely which "overhead racks" are you talking about? It's a coat rack at absolute best. It definitely won't take an IATA carry-on - certainly not upstairs where there's often no rack at all.

Besides, the journey times for business (combined with a shift to agile working and the way London hotel prices are going) mean that out and back trips on multiple days become more practical. Just 'popping' to London for a couple of hours, rather than making it a 'night before' job, becomes more credible.
 

Bletchleyite

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Besides, the journey times for business (combined with a shift to agile working and the way London hotel prices are going) mean that out and back trips on multiple days become more practical. Just 'popping' to London for a couple of hours, rather than making it a 'night before' job, becomes more credible.

Have you seen the price of peak time Manchester-London tickets? Even at inflated London hotel prices, stopping over is way, way cheaper.

I don't agree with your optimism on fares. The Government will want its investment back, so I would expect fares as per the WCML now, possibly a little extra.
 

HSTEd

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Have you seen the price of peak time Manchester-London tickets?
And the price will collapse when all capacity constraints are removed.
I can put 1500 passengers on a peak time train.
That is closing in on 3 Pendolinos.
I don't agree with your optimism on fares. The Government will want its investment back, so I would expect fares as per the WCML now, possibly a little extra.
I expect the Government to set prices to maximise total revenue.
Which is pretty likely to be the maximum ticket price regime that still fills the line.

A 200m train will almost always make less revenue than a 400m one, and an empty seat makes no revenue at all.

A seat on the newly ordered Avelia Horizons will cost something like €32,900. If we assume 6 round trips per day (so allowances for maintenance), that is like 2100+ round trips per year.

So even if the train only lasts a single year, the capital cost component of a return ticket is about €16.
So the capital cost of buying the trains is negligible, the breakeven seat cost will be tiny.

EDIT:

It is so low that I would expect max length formations on every route that can take them.
It's probably even worth Birmingham-Leeds running mostly 400m formations simply to effectively relieve Cross-Country of the demand.
The journey time advantage is so huge that the changes won't matter!
 
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The Ham

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Heavy luggage and children is easy enough to climb six inches, unless they are so small that their guardian should not be letting them walk around!

My nearly 2 year old can walk 400m with ease unaided but can not step up a 125mm full height kerb.
 

Bletchleyite

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And the price will collapse when all capacity constraints are removed.

No, it won't. Take a peak time VTWC service and you will see that they are nowhere near full. The price is set to maximise income, not to maximise utilisation. And HS2 will be no different - the Government will be sure of it.

The only times there is really a capacity constraint on VTWC is Friday evening (northbound) and Sunday afternoon (southbound).
 

The Ham

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In trying to work out the carbon emissions for HS2 on a per km basis.

I've established that there's 1,592,000 tonnes of (gross) CO2 emissions over a 60 year period. Based on 1,451,000 tonnes for construction and 141,000 for the use stage.

With 1,000,000g per tonne that's 1,592,000,000,000g.

With 100 million passengers a year over 60 years that's 6,000,000,000 trips over that 60 year period.

That gives me a figure of 265g per trip.

If I assume a 50km average trip length then that's about 6g/km.

The problem is that to me that appears to be far too low. What am I missing?

The only thing I can think of is that is only based the infrastructure and has nothing allowed for the trains themselves (build and running).

Especially as traditional rail is often cited as 41g/km and even Eurostar is 9g/km (which I believe is just the running of the trains in both cases).
 

HSTEd

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No, it won't. Take a peak time VTWC service and you will see that they are nowhere near full. The price is set to maximise income, not to maximise utilisation. And HS2 will be no different - the Government will be sure of it.
And once commuting between the Manchester and Birmingham urban areas and London becomes practical for everyday people, the best way to maximise income will be to drop the price and sell huge numbers of season tickets.
Even buying trainsets just for peak commuter trains would probably be worth it at that point.

Hell on Birmingham runs, some of the trainsets would be able to manage two trips in each peak!

The current season price for Manchester-London is £15,000.
Cut it to £10,000 or below and you will still pay back fast enough for the new trainsets, and thats assuming you don't run the trains during the day too, which you obviously would do, pricing advance fares just above the marginal cost of operation.

EDIT:

The operating and maintenance costs of a TGV Duplex in a low density configuration were about ~€0.0826/seat-km in 2002. Inflation and the increase in seat density configuration to 760 mean that is about €0.074/seat-km today

It's about a 360km round trip London to Birmingham, which gives us an O&M cost of about €27 return.
Even €5 would easily pay back the capital cost for the extra capacity, which leaves us about €32 to provide extra seats return between London and Birmingham.
The off peak return is about £50, and the anytime fare is ~£178.

Indeed that is comparable to the super off peak return on Chiltern!

In this environment it is highly unlikely that deliberately limiting capacity and keeping ticket prices where they are is going to yield the highest possible net revenue.
 
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Hadders

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And the price will collapse when all capacity constraints are removed.

Like what happened on HS1?.....

One thing I guarantee is that fares will not go down.
 

jfowkes

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With HS1 there wasn't really an existing LDHS service on the classic lines to compare against though.
 

tasky

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The practical option is to build everything single-deck and to UK loading gauge with low floor for level boarding at every single platform they will ever serve, be they on HS2 or elsewhere. These trains are going to be 400m long. They don't need to be double-deck too. How often is a Eurostar totally full? It's surprisingly rare except when flights are disrupted.

This is more down to Eurostar's pricing model as it is to any immutable base level of demand – Eurostar prices get extremely expensive at the last minute and they seem to have calculated that this is the best way to maximise revenue, possibly because of the overwhelmingly business nature of most last-minute trips between London and Brussels/Paris. They would have absolutely no problem filling the trains if they wanted to.
 

HSTEd

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Like what happened on HS1?.....
HS1 does not represent the capability of a high speed rail line in any reasonable sense.
It's a mixed traffic railway using short commuter trains with relatively low capacity.

If 400m platforms had been provided for HS1 Domestic at St Pancras, it would be in a much better state today.
 

Leo1961

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Like what happened on HS1?.....

One thing I guarantee is that fares will not go down.

They may not go down in real terms, but they probably will in relative terms over time. Unless this is the exception to the normal rules of supply and demand. Either way it should be interesting to observe from our armchairs.
 

Hadders

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HS1 does not represent the capability of a high speed rail line in any reasonable sense.
It's a mixed traffic railway using short commuter trains with relatively low capacity.

If 400m platforms had been provided for HS1 Domestic at St Pancras, it would be in a much better state today.

Claims were made that it was a waste of money, a white elephant, wouldn’t be needed, no need to shave a few minutes off journey times, it’ll cart fresh air around most of the time etc etc. In fact, exactly the same arguments that are used against HS2.

I don’t think anyone now says we shouldn’t have built HS1. I believe the same will be said of HS2.
 

Bletchleyite

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Claims were made that it was a waste of money, a white elephant, wouldn’t be needed, no need to shave a few minutes off journey times, it’ll cart fresh air around most of the time etc etc. In fact, exactly the same arguments that are used against HS2.

I don’t think anyone now says we shouldn’t have built HS1. I believe the same will be said of HS2.

HS1 of course was built for Eurostar, and the commuter trains are more of a "because we can".
 

Class 170101

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Calvert is quite cunning politically as it would link to EWR and placate some protesters

Their argument that it doesn't benefit the Chilterns would be weakened as a result but I'm inclined to agree with those that unless Calvert becomes a New Town and interchange with East West Rail I can't see the benefits outweighing the hassles of the NIMBYs (who should be told to get on their bikes anyway).
 

Ianno87

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Claims were made that it was a waste of money, a white elephant, wouldn’t be needed, no need to shave a few minutes off journey times, it’ll cart fresh air around most of the time etc etc. In fact, exactly the same arguments that are used against HS2.

I don’t think anyone now says we shouldn’t have built HS1. I believe the same will be said of HS2.

People still said it wasn’t needed....

And now the various towns around Kent generally clamoring to have more and more HS1 domestic services serve them.
 

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AndrewE

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Have you ever been on a UIC gauge double deck train? Precisely which "overhead racks" are you talking about? It's a coat rack at absolute best. It definitely won't take an IATA carry-on - certainly not upstairs where there's often no rack at all.
If the double deck TGVs from la Rochelle to Paris count, then I had a painful reminder of the presence of the rack in first class upstairs - twice... Don't lean forward to give something to someone sitting in the window- seat! They are clearly visible in the pictures on https://www.seat61.com/tgv.htm#TGV_Duplex
 

matacaster

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I thought that hs2 was supposed to be bringing huge benefits to the North? The various vindications on frequency and pricing above seem to me to be terribly close to my belief that hs2 is primarily a commuter route to benefit london.
 

The Ham

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I thought that hs2 was supposed to be bringing huge benefits to the North? The various vindications on frequency and pricing above seem to me to be terribly close to my belief that hs2 is primarily a commuter route to benefit london.

Let's take Manchester as an example, it is said that there'll be a need for 2tph (was Virgin) to be retained and so there'll be no released capacity as there's already 2tph from London to Manchester in the morning peak.

However that fails to acknowledge the 3rd service each hour from Manchester to London during the morning peak.

That one extra service creates space which could be used for two trains which could be 6 coaches long.

If those trains were previously 3 coaches elsewhere within the station then that allows a further two trains to be lengthened (say from 3 to 6).

That's 4 extra trains which could be 6 coaches long rather than 3 coaches.

However that's 8 services (1 in and 1 or for each train) which would see a benefit.

That's in addition to the extra capacity created by people shifting from the likes of XC to HS2. As I've stated before those traveling from Reading, Southampton, Bournemouth, etc. will have the option for a faster journey time by using HS2 to get to Manchester and broadly comparable to Birmingham. (If you don't believe me look up the journey time from those places to Paddington and add that to the journey time from Euston using HS2 and compare it to the existing journey time, if I'm wrong in sure someone will highlight my error).

Although both of these are fairly small improvements the big advantage is when you then build NPR and switch a load of other services away from the existing platforms. Without the construction of HS2 the cost of the new platforms would then need to switch from HS2 to NPR which would then sufficiently impact on the viability of NPR.

The cancelling of HS2 could therefore result in NPR not being built.

Now whilst HS2 would see 40% of the benefits being seen by London (actually what is meant is that 40% of passengers will start/end their journey in London, this also means that 60% of passengers won't start or end their journey at London), the future benefits of building HS2 to other regions could be significant.

Now I know I go on about the growth rate seen to date, but it is important. In that if we aren't on target to hit the expected passenger numbers then that would be a significant problem.

Now I've always talked about the 2.5% growth year on year to reach the rail passenger numbers and how we're significantly above it.

However how do we compare if we assume that rather than rail being 75% of passenger numbers we assume that it's 100% of passenger numbers.

To achieve that we'd have to have had growth of 3.6% each and every year. In the 9 years since HS2 was announced in 2009 (even though actually the base year for HS2 passenger numbers is 2008) to be on track we'd have had to have seen 38% growth. Yet we've seen 49% growth between London and the region's which will benefit from HS2. (This would mean that even against this harder to achieve passenger number figure we could still have 2 years or of the next 17 which are flat, alternatively it would allow the growth rate to be 3.2% each year).

That would indicate that actually we're likely to exceed predictions, especially given that the majority of transfer from air or car would likely happen once the speed improvements happen (i.e. once HS2 is at least partly open).

However even if we're off on the numbers by a little bit (and you have to remember that there's supposed to be several years of HS2 phase 1 in operation which is likely to attract more people through improved services, so is expect us to be a little under at the opening of Phase 1) then the switch from other modes (air and car) would likely make up any shortfall.

However if we end up being over, then this would cover some of the extra costs.

Again I'm willing to let someone challenge the data and highlight where I've gone wrong (as I'm not foolproof). However, for some reason few try.

Some do try to argue that growth is trending downwards unfortunately the latest growth figures show that the increase in growth rates is rising again (not that there had been much of a fall, and virtually none outside of London, but rather that the increase in growth is getting bigger again).

This is likely down to the recent investment in rolling stock and capacity compared with the fairly low levels between 2012 and 2017.
 

matacaster

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Let's take Manchester as an example, it is said that there'll be a need for 2tph (was Virgin) to be retained and so there'll be no released capacity as there's already 2tph from London to Manchester in the morning peak.

However that fails to acknowledge the 3rd service each hour from Manchester to London during the morning peak.

That one extra service creates space which could be used for two trains which could be 6 coaches long.

If those trains were previously 3 coaches elsewhere within the station then that allows a further two trains to be lengthened (say from 3 to 6).

That's 4 extra trains which could be 6 coaches long rather than 3 coaches.

However that's 8 services (1 in and 1 or for each train) which would see a benefit.

That's in addition to the extra capacity created by people shifting from the likes of XC to HS2. As I've stated before those traveling from Reading, Southampton, Bournemouth, etc. will have the option for a faster journey time by using HS2 to get to Manchester and broadly comparable to Birmingham. (If you don't believe me look up the journey time from those places to Paddington and add that to the journey time from Euston using HS2 and compare it to the existing journey time, if I'm wrong in sure someone will highlight my error).

Although both of these are fairly small improvements the big advantage is when you then build NPR and switch a load of other services away from the existing platforms. Without the construction of HS2 the cost of the new platforms would then need to switch from HS2 to NPR which would then sufficiently impact on the viability of NPR.

The cancelling of HS2 could therefore result in NPR not being built.

Now whilst HS2 would see 40% of the benefits being seen by London (actually what is meant is that 40% of passengers will start/end their journey in London, this also means that 60% of passengers won't start or end their journey at London), the future benefits of building HS2 to other regions could be significant.

Now I know I go on about the growth rate seen to date, but it is important. In that if we aren't on target to hit the expected passenger numbers then that would be a significant problem.

Now I've always talked about the 2.5% growth year on year to reach the rail passenger numbers and how we're significantly above it.

However how do we compare if we assume that rather than rail being 75% of passenger numbers we assume that it's 100% of passenger numbers.

To achieve that we'd have to have had growth of 3.6% each and every year. In the 9 years since HS2 was announced in 2009 (even though actually the base year for HS2 passenger numbers is 2008) to be on track we'd have had to have seen 38% growth. Yet we've seen 49% growth between London and the region's which will benefit from HS2. (This would mean that even against this harder to achieve passenger number figure we could still have 2 years or of the next 17 which are flat, alternatively it would allow the growth rate to be 3.2% each year).

That would indicate that actually we're likely to exceed predictions, especially given that the majority of transfer from air or car would likely happen once the speed improvements happen (i.e. once HS2 is at least partly open).

However even if we're off on the numbers by a little bit (and you have to remember that there's supposed to be several years of HS2 phase 1 in operation which is likely to attract more people through improved services, so is expect us to be a little under at the opening of Phase 1) then the switch from other modes (air and car) would likely make up any shortfall.

However if we end up being over, then this would cover some of the extra costs.

Again I'm willing to let someone challenge the data and highlight where I've gone wrong (as I'm not foolproof). However, for some reason few try.

Some do try to argue that growth is trending downwards unfortunately the latest growth figures show that the increase in growth rates is rising again (not that there had been much of a fall, and virtually none outside of London, but rather that the increase in growth is getting bigger again).

This is likely down to the recent investment in rolling stock and capacity compared with the fairly low levels between 2012 and 2017.

Thanks for that!

I have three points on above.
1. I am aware a report exists saying 40% of hs2 journeys will not start /end in London, however its just an estimate and we know how accurate they can be (see original ests for hs1 and tunnel)
2. Even if I accept that only 40% of journeys start / finish in London, I think you may find that these represent the drain from the North of high worth jobs to london thus imbalancing economy even more. Why would a London based office business open up an office in the North when they can get the people they need without relocation by them commuting via hs2. The non-london 60% would likely be mainly budget leisure travellers and students who would doubtless be happy, but would not materially improve the North / south imbalance.
3. Correction of the imbalance only happens if movers and shakers relocate to North. When houses of Parliament shuts for renovations, if Parliament moved to Middlesbrough, I think the North would suddenly get huge infrastructure improvements and relocated government departments. Senior politicians of all parties need to spend significant periods up north, not just a couple of hours.
 
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Camden

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I couldn't give a hoot about this report, other than noting the public condemnation of it by someone who was supposed to be involved in it.

HS2 has already wreaked havoc in the north, even without a chain of track being built.

The whole "Liverpool" issue is extremely iffy, and its exclusion from the core network (bizarrely reinforced recently by it also being excluded from the silly named northern powerhouse rail, despite having a massive business case) has cost billions in lost GDP.

On top of directly wrecking growth prospects, needlessly depressed property values in one of the country's top five cities - due to missed/ruined inward investment opportunities - has led to some very concerning events, including scandals which have damaged the UK's global investment reputation (probably why more recently there have been moves to try and actually put a stop to some of it, many years too late).

When access to the Port of Liverpool is primarily going to be by road, a new road cutting a swathe through a country park, something is very wrong with infrastructure spending in this country.

Dealing with inequity and curious decisions will be one of Boris' big challenges in the next 5 years, whether he wants to or not. Scrapping HS2 would be a good start, but if he doesn't get a grip at least he will find himself booted out after one term.
 
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The Ham

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Thanks for that!

I have two points on above.
1. I am aware a report exists saying 40% of hs2 journeys will not start /end in London, however its just an estimate and we know how accurate they can be (see original ests for hs1 and tunnel)
2. Even if I accept that only 40% of journeys start / finish in London, I think you may find that these represent the drain from the North of high worth jobs to london thus in balancing economy even more. Why would a London based office business open up an office in the North when they can get the people they need without relocation by them commuting via hs2. The non-london 60% would likely be mainly budget leisure travellers and students who would doubtless be happy, but would not materially improve the North / south imbalance.
3. Correction of the imbalance only happens if movers and shakers relocate to North. When houses of Parliament shuts for renovations, if Parliament moved to Middlesbrough, I think the North would suddenly get huge infrastructure improvements and relocated government departments.

The estimates for HS1 were adrift compared to predictions, however I would suggest that even if the predictions for HS2 start/end points were off by 25% it would still be 50/50, however the opposite could be true that it could be off the other way and so only be 30%. Anyway we are currently ahead of predictions, so even if the 40/60 predictions is off the actual numbers traveling to/from non London locations could be the same or higher.

High worth jobs could actually be attracted to the North, I'll explain why by using my work history as an example. I've never worked in London (i.e. within the M25), however my office had always been within a fairly short hop (typically up to an hour from central London by train). This means that those who needed to attend meeting in London could do so easily without the need to (and cost from their own pocket) travel into London every day. The companies that I work(ed) for are not unique in choosing this model. In that their costs are lower and often find it easier to recruit staff (who are also likely to accept lower pay by not needing to pay such high travel costs), especially for those lower grade staff (including admin staff). As such with Manchester being busy over an hour from London I wouldn't be surprised if you actually saw companies setting up officers Manchester to compete with companies within London.
 
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